The present invention relates in general to administering access to shared resources such as bridge hardware for establishing conference calls in a telecommunications network and, in particular, to a scheduler that can be accessed by users via a communications network such as the Internet to schedule conference calls.
Conference calls between three or more participants are generally either established unilaterally by a host participant or multilaterally using bridge hardware. In the first case, the host participant typically sequentially calls the phone numbers for each participant and patches the connections for each participant together one-by-one using a conference feature provided in connection with the host participant""s telephone. In the latter case, each participant is connected to a port of a bridge system. Such bridge hardware may be privately or publicly operated. Using such bridge hardware is preferred for many applications because it eliminates the need for a host participant to dial telephone numbers for all participants, saves time and improves connection quality, particularly for large conference calls.
Access to bridge hardware must be controlled in order to ensure adequate availability. In the simplest case, particular bridge hardware (one or more bridges) may be dedicated to a particular group, e.g., a development team located in one or more facilities of a corporation or other organization. At a prearranged time, the conference call participants dial into a dedicated bridge number and, if a bridge is available, are connected to establish the conference call. While this arrangement is satisfactory for some applications, it generally results in underutilization of bridge resources, i.e., a large number of bridges may be required in order to ensure adequate availability. For example, bridges administrated in this manner may be utilized only ten percent or less of the time. Because bridge hardware can be expensive, bridge systems administered in this manner can require a substantial up-front investment to acquire the necessary amount of bridge hardware.
To improve utilization and reduce up-front costs, it is desirable to schedule access to a pool of bridges. Typically, such scheduling has been done manually. In this regard, at least one conference participant generally calls an operator who manages the bridge hardware with information regarding a proposed conference call. Such information may include, for example, the date and time of the proposed conference call, the anticipated duration of the call, the number of participants and the identity of the participants. Based on this information, the operator determines what bridge resources will be required, consults a database to identify available resources, and if resources are available, schedules the conference call. Depending upon the particular system, the operator may then give the arranging participant or all participants a telephone number for dialing-in to access the bridge at the arranged conference call time. Alternatively, the various participants may be called to initiate the conference call. In either case, the participants are each connected to a port of a bridge or bridges in order to patch together the conference call.
Although such scheduling allows for greater bridge utilization and reduced costs, it is problematic for certain applications. Some large organizations may have a large number of privately operated bridges, for example, several hundred bridges. Manual administration of such bridges could require the fall time attention of a number of employees thus increasing system overhead. Such administrative overhead is even greater for publicly accessible bridge resources, i.e., bridge resources made available to clients by a telecommunications company. As a result, in order to ensure adequate access to bridge resources, it is often necessary to either make a substantial up-front investment to create an oversupply of bridge resources that will be underutilized, or to bear substantial on-going administrative expenditures in order to more fully utilize a smaller supply of bridge resources.
The present invention is directed to a system for automatically administering shared resources telecommunications bridge resources. The system allows a pool of bridges, and associated bridge numbers, to be automatically assigned to prospective conference call participants based on accessing a scheduler via a computer network. The invention thus allows for better utilization of bridge resources than would be obtained using dedicated, rather than pooled, hardware, thereby reducing up-front hardware requirements. Moreover, such improved utilization is achieved without manual administration thereby reducing ongoing administrative overhead. The invention can be used to schedule access to other types of shared resources such as conference rooms.
According to one aspect of the present invention, the scheduler, which may be embodied in software or other logic running on a network platform, receives requests from network users via a computer network such as the Internet. The corresponding method is initiated by providing a scheduler for use in scheduling access to shared resources such as bridge hardware, interfacing the scheduler with the public computer network (e.g., by establishing a URL and activating the associated website), and receiving an access request via the public network from a first user node associated with a first network user, e.g., the arranging conference call participant.. The access request, which requests access to the scheduler to schedule a conference call, preferably includes an ID code or other identification information regarding the network user. The scheduling method further includes the steps of authenticating the access request by verifying the identification information, selectively allowing the user to access the scheduler based on such authentication, receiving a scheduling request, from the network user via the network, using the scheduler to access a scheduling database and process the scheduling request and outputting scheduling information regarding the shared resource to the network user based on the process scheduling request.
In the case of a conference call bridge scheduler, the scheduling request may include, among other things, the date and time of the prospective conference call, the anticipated duration of the conference call, and the number and identity of the conference call participants. In order to facilitate the entry of a list of conference call participants, the scheduler may import data from other programs, such as electronic address books including group fields, to populate the fields associated with the call participants. Based on this information, the scheduler can determine the amount of bridging resources that will be required to service the conference call (e.g., the number of bridges) and the availability of such resources at the requested time. If the resources are available, the scheduler reserves the resources by communicating with a control system associated with of the bridge resources, data base or operator and, optionally reports the corresponding access information to the prospective conference call participants. For example, the access information may include a 1-800 number for dialing-in to access the bridge resources at the time of the conference call. If the resources are not available, the scheduler and network user can interactively determine an alternative time for the conference call. The participation of conference call participants can be confirmed via communications between such participants and the scheduler via the public network. For example, the participants may access the scheduler to confirm their participation. Alternatively, the scheduler may contact the participants identified in the original scheduling request to obtain confirmation and provide access information. At the selected time for the conference call, the conference call may be initiated by having the participants dial-in to an identified bridge number. If desired, the scheduler can be adapted to contact the conference call participants, at the time of the call or otherwise, with reminders concerning the call, e.g., by phone or e-mail.
According to another aspect of the present invention, a computer network structure is utilized to allow for automatic scheduling for bridge resources for conference calls. The corresponding method involves providing a network structure usable for conveying communications between a scheduler at a server network node and at least three client nodes associated with at least three prospective conference call participants, and using the network structure to convey communications between the server node of the scheduler and each of the client nodes of the prospective conference call participants regarding a conference call. These communications are utilized to arrange the conference call relative to the telecommunication bridge resources. The communications may include a scheduling request from a first client node of a first prospective conference call participant to the server node of the scheduler requesting access to the telecommunications bridge resources for the conference call. The communications may further include transmitting information from the server node of the scheduler to each of the client nodes of the prospective conference call participants regarding information for establishing access to the bridging resources, e.g., a 1-800 number for the conference call.
According to a further aspect of the present invention, a method is provided for operating a control system of telecommunications bridging resources in response to inputs from a scheduler. The method includes the steps of providing a number of bridges for bridging conference calls, providing a control system for controlling access to the bridges, and operating the control system to provide access to the bridges in response to scheduling information from a scheduler where the scheduler is accessible by each of a number of prospective conference call participants via a computer network in order to schedule or confirm a conference call. Conference calls may be confirmed, or a participant may obtain information regarding a scheduled conference call, by searching a conference call database and pulling up related screens. Such searching may be conducted based on call time, participants, organizer or chair person, or other data fields. The step of operating may involve updating a scheduling database based on the scheduling information and/or establishing connections between the conference call participant and at least one of the bridges based on the scheduling information. The scheduler can also be linked to a billing system to transmit information regarding billing for conference calls. For example, the scheduler may direct that the conference call be billed to the arranging party, or to a particular organization, company, or unit within a company. Alternatively, the scheduler may assign a 1-900 number for accessing the conference call or levy a fee for obtaining a password to participate in a call, thereby allowing for charges directly to the conference call participants.